In our latest issue of Kaizen we feature an interview with Judy Estrin, CEO of JLabs, co-founder of seven technology companies, and author of Closing the Innovation Gap.
Microsoft was working on e-books and tablet PCs a decade ago. So why did it never get around to releasing them? Why, with so many intelligent and talented employees, is it falling behind Apple in innovation? Dick Brass, who was a Microsoft vice president for seven years, explains how Microsoft’s lack of systems that support innovation lead to risk-avoidance and internal struggles that crush great ideas before they ever make it into the marketplace.
Entrepreneurship is all about rethinking the old way of doing things, so let’s start off the New Year by reading about ten breakthrough ideas for 2010 at Harvard Business Review. Some of the interesting issues explored by the authors are: What truly motivates employees? Can we create a better model for the pharmaceutical business? How can we speed up the process by which innovative research makes it to the marketplace? And, what lessons can we learn about productivity from hackers?
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has reported that patent filings are down for 2009. Is this a symptom of the economy, or of the fact that the time it takes to successfully file a patent is a serious barrier to innovative entrepreneurs?
In India, there are 200 million people who need eye care and less than ten percent of them have been reached. Moreover, 80 percent of these eye problems can be easily prevented or treated. Thulasiraj Ravilla, Executive Director of the Aravind Eye Care System, talks about how the clinic manages to serve such a large number of patients each year, only 40% of them paying customers. Dr. V., the clinic’s founder, chose an interesting source of inspiration when looking for a way to deliver low cost, consistent, efficient service in India and worldwide – McDonald’s. Watch the video below.
Dr. Devi Shetty brings an innovative approach to heart surgery in India by using economies of scale to drive the price per surgery down. His flagship heart hospital, Narayana Hrudayalaya, has about 10 times the number of beds as its typical American counterpart, and the cost of surgery averages at about $2,000, versus the $20,000-$100,000 Americans pay. But does handling such a large volume of patients affect the quality of care they receive?
The boy who harnessed the wind — a 14-year old who decides to design and build a windmill to bring electricity to his remote village in Malawi. A deeply human story of initiative, ingenuity, and independence.
“What makes visionary entrepreneurs such as Apple’s Steve Jobs, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Ebay’s Pierre Omidyar and Meg Whitman, and P&G’s A.G. Lafley tick?”
Barry Linetsky, consulting partner at The Strategic Planning Group, discusses Walt Disney’s principles of achieving business success in this short essay (PDF).
Check out Pitchmen, a new show airing on the Discovery Channel. “Pitchmen follows the adventures of Billy Mays and Anthony ‘Sully’ Sullivan, two of the most famous and successful pitchmen in history, as they search the world for inventions they believe they can take all the way to the big time. In each episode, this odd couple of pitchmen partners become potential dream merchants for the inventors they discover.” You can catch excerpts of the show, such as the one below, on YouTube.
In our latest issue of Kaizen we feature an interview with Judy Estrin, CEO of JLabs, co-founder of seven technology companies, and author of Closing the Innovation Gap.
